Trying to Think Happy Thoughts

I looked out my window this morning and wondered, "will I ever see green grass again". We've had a very mild winter but I am still done. Done with the cold and done with the starkness everywhere. I miss the leaves...I miss the smell of cut grass...I miss the warm evenings...I miss seeing my kids' scrawny legs in shorts. I love the summer evenings we spend together as a family. I know the "grass isn't always greener on the other side", but in this case, yes, yes it is!! But there is hope of warmer days...my daffodils, tulips, and daylilies are poking through the dirt. The warm days are coming!  I can almost smell our neighbor's BBQ! (afterall, a neighbor's BBQ always smells better than your own)

And in my attempt to catch up...here are pictures from last summer that I haven't blogged yet.

(Another fine face from Ryan.)

V Day...Brock Style

This year Valentine's Day fell on a Mutual night, and even though I tried to get out of it, they wouldn't cancel. So we had to change things up a bit. We held our annual "Mama and Papa's Love Hut" dinner the night before. I was too lazy to take pictures, but it was the same as last year. We hung sheets all around the dining table, served the kids a spaghetti dinner (which they ordered off a menu), and ate by candlelight. They always love this tradition. It's cheesy, but fun. 

That night I "heart attacked" their doors and laid out a foam heart trail for each child to follow the next morning. This year they were color coded so the kids knew which to follow and it ended with a treat from Mommy.

 No blog post would be complete without a silly face from Ry Guy.

Derek finishing his Valentines at the very last minute. That's how he rolls. :)



 Then the food color fairy entered the kitchen and turned our milk and pancakes pink. I thought I'd save time and color the entire milk jug pink instead of each individual cup of milk. We were drinking pink milk for days. :)

I opened my door that morning to find this! A sweet sister in our ward secretly heart attacked my door and left yummy sugar cookies! It totally made me smile.

The rest of the day was spent baking sugar cookies and decorating them for neighbors. Get this, so later that night I show up for Mutual to find out that the Young Men decided to cancel. Hmmm.... They can, but I got the "no" when I tried. We just figured they were home showing obedience to their sweet wives. We still had a fun night with the Mia Maids though.

Bring on the Love

Like a lot of families, we like to make Valentine mailboxes and hang them on our bedroom doors. For the few days or so before Valentine's Day we deliver notes and candy to each other. The kids LOVE this tradition. Here are some of us hard at work:

 I love that Dave willingly participates. He took his box to the "H.N.L.". :)

 As you can gather by his box, Derek is more anti-lovey stuff than anyone I know. He loves the tradition of writing notes, but gets grossed-out by all the hearts, pink, and red.

McKenna on the other hand...can't get enough of the holiday!

My Babies Are Growing Up!

I give up! Because I have become so behind in my blogging, I have shut down. I am too overwhelmed to start again. I have so much that I want to put on here and it's worthwhile. But I need to move on. Every time I go to make a new post I think "no, if I skip something then I'll never go back and do it". I changed my mind several times while I was creating this post. But I really want to get back into blogging, so I am giving up on the old posts and I am starting with the current times. Maybe I'll do a flashback post every once in a while. 

Ryan began going to Nursery on January 8th and McKenna left Nursery on January 1st. They just missed each other! They would have had fun together, but McKenna was more than ready to become a Sunbeam. Ryan, however, not so ready to become a Nursery goer. He cries every time Dave drops him off, but each week the crying is easing up. This last Sunday Dave said he cried for about 5 seconds. He still wants us to know that he is not okay with the abandonment. I thought he was so adorable with his little handout necklace, so I took a few pictures...okay, a lot of pictures. 

I told him to say "cheese". He's saying "eeeeessse".

Like I mentioned, McKenna finally started Sunbeams this year. Last year she missed the deadline by one month, so she has been hanging out with the babies waiting for her turn for Primary. She gave her first talk on Sunday and did so great! She told me before church that she was going to be shy, but she got right up and talked clearly and loudly into the microphone. Her teacher asked her to bring her "scripture reader" to class each week and she is very dedicated to this assignment. Such a sweet girl!

This is the face you get when you tell her that she wasn't looking at the camera for the previous pictures. :)

I just thought I'd add this one for the humor factor. I should make a whole post of Ryan outtakes. That kid make some funny faces!

And to the 2 people that still check this blog...Thanks for sticking with me. I really do hope to get this blog going again!